If you're going to die soon, at least find another reader

If a person dies during the night and is not discovered until morning, when they are obviously dead and cold, who should be called to issue a death certificate, assuming there is no family doctor?

Why do you ask? Are you planning on dying alone at home any time soon?

I hope not. I need all of you people I can get. So if you are planning on dying anytime soon, I would appreciate it if you found a replacement, somebody who doesn't read the column now. (It shouldn't be all that hard to find someone like that.)

Anyway, when you die, you have a right to remain dead. Anything you say will be taken down and used to prove you are not dead.

And you have the right to be certified as dead by a person authorized to do so.

If you do not have such a person or cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you.

OK, this is how it works, at least in Arizona:

After they haul you off cold and dead to a funeral home, the folks there will take care of the death certificate by contacting a doctor, either by fax or in person.

And as of this year, physician assistants also are authorized to sign a death certificate.

You never see pigeons in the wild or, I should say, outside the urban areas. Is there such a thing as a "wild" pigeon? Of course, they are all wild, but it seems the mourning doves are only in the suburban areas and the pigeons are only in the cities.

First of all, you can't generalize about mourning doves in the suburbs and pigeons in the city. Next, feral pigeons go to where there is plenty of food and shelter and that means urban areas or farms.

I'm not saying you'll never see a pigeon in the wild, but I believe it would be unusual.